This week’s fresh listings:
This page is to be updated every
Tuesday and will contain all the latest Coin,
Medal & Token listings for that particular week.
The more observant of you may have realised that I no
longer keep previous "Fresh Listings" coins on this page.
All for sale coins can be
found via the category grid on the front page.
Most sold
coins are now accessible via a
new link on that same category grid.
Additions to www.HistoryInCoins.com
for week commencing Tuesday 1st July 2025
WI-9167: 1690 (and, rarely, 1689)
Irish Gun Money Full Crown. James II emergency Civil War coinage of 1689-91. Struck at Dublin.
S.R. 6578.
Overstruck on the large Gun Money halfcrowns as by 1690, these were
obsolete; replaced by the small size halfcrowns. The obverse of the Gun Money crown (and it is
just the crowns) has similarities to the earlier Charles 1st
halfcrowns and crowns, which I’m sure was far from accidental. It won’t have escaped readers’ attention that
Gun Money coinage is currently riding high in terms of popularity in today's
market. After fleeing from England to
France in 1688 – an effective abdication from the English throne – James II
landed in Ireland March 1689 in order to promote his Catholic cause, something
we are perhaps still living with today?!
He had insufficient funds to prosecute this war so the plan was to raise
money by issuing base metal coinage in place of what would previously have been
silver issues. This was a less subtle
example of the Quantitative Easing that we all witnessed a few years ago. This coinage was set up with an intention for
them to be exchanged for sterling coinage once the dust had settled. This never happened. The metal for these coins came from latten:
old cannon, bells and various other scrap metals that were termed “Gun Money”. The underlying halfcrown detail can be seen
in places, but most importantly, the
underlying host date of 1689 is as clear as daylight - in fact the 1689 date is
actually clearer than the intended date of 1690,
something I have never seen before. Even
better, the crown was struck with its reverse on the reverse of the host halfcrown
AND at a near 180 degree die rotation, meaning both dates are side by
side. There is a clear capital letter O
by the OM of DOM which even gives us the month this host halfcrown was struck -
October of 1689. I challenge you to find
a more interesting example of this issue for sale anywhere on the open market
today! A very
desirable and quite probably a unique coin. 
£435
Provenance:
ex
Spink
WSC-9168: 1556 Mary Queen of Scots
Hammered Silver Testoon. First period, 1542-58, before her marriage,
type IIIa, S.R.5404.
Edinburgh mint, initial
mark Crown. The main image is once again poor so here's an alternative
using a camera phone indoors.
Circulating at a face value of 5s until the coin was recalled twenty two
years later in 1578 under James VI for revaluation to 7s,4d. The crowned thistle official countermark was
used to denote the coin's higher value - a necessity of the time due to the
rampant increase in the price of silver.
Interestingly, this coin was increased in value by a massive 46% but
gold coins remained unchanged, at least until 1611 but even then the gold
revaluation was only 10%. Muling of the dates on these coins was relatively common
due to obverse and reverse dies being kept loose in a box. However, there is no such muling
here which is not really that surprising given that this is the very first date
of this type. Scottish coinage in
general was a product of miniscule mintage figures compared to south of the
border, and yet pricing seems almost equivalent? Now clearly English coinage is collected to a
much greater extent than Scottish but even so, why is Scottish coinage so
undervalued in today’s market compared to its undeniable rarity in
numbers? I have the mintage figures of
some milled five shillings to hand:
23rd Oct to 23rd Dec 1692 = 2,692 coins
5th Jan to 5th Dec 1694 = 3,496 coins
3rd Jan to 10th May 1698 = 32,857 coins
Clearly
the above data shows somewhat later coins (but if anything, mintages on later
Scottish coinage increased with population increases, not decreased), and as a
side point, the dates on the coins were not always contemporaneous anyway. Tiny mintages though, and don’t forget the
currency recalls where coinage would be officially taken in to go into the
melting pot upon the death of every old monarch to release silver and gold for
the new monarch's coinage. There was
also a large recall of coinage in 1707 as a result of the Act of Union:
£142,180 face value of hammered Scottish coinage and £96,856 face value of
milled Scottish coinage was brought into the Edinburgh mint to be melted down and recoined.
Interestingly, £132,080 face value of foreign (non English, Irish or
Scottish) was also handed in at the recall due to the Act, highlighting just
how bereft of physical home-grown coinage Scotland was at this time, and thus
how extremely rare Scottish coinage is today.
One final point: the obverse 6 in the date has been struck twice on this
coin, indicating that the date was 155- on the die with the final digit being
added to the coin after minting to correspond with whatever the year had ticked
over to. All well and good - and indeed
this was a common practise on the Elizabeth 1st English dated sixpences - but
in view of what we know about the muling of dates, it
makes absolutely no sense?! A very interesting and rare coin. £1,175
Provenance:
ex
Spink
WSC-9169: Choice Robert III Hammered Silver Medieval Scottish Groat. Heavy coinage, 1390 - 1403, Edinburgh mint.
First issue with obverse colon stops and reverse
saltire "colon-esque" legend terminals. Seven arcs to tressure. Tall bust. S.R.
5164. John, Earl of Carrick,
eldest son of Robert II, changed his name to Robert on succeeding to the
throne. Being almost entirely disabled
by an accident before his father's death, the country was effectively run by
yet another Robert - Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany, the king's younger brother. Just as in England, there was a severe shortage of
silver being brought to the mint. By no
means a rare type coin but certainly very rare in this
high grade: Scottish groats are generally cruder in style that their English
counterparts but crucially, the coins rarely look attractive due to rather
poorly engraved dies. They didn't tend
to suffer too much with clipping north of the border but are often found weekly
struck and rather insipid in appearance, making them appear to be of a lower
grade than they actually are.
Incidentally, this was the issue where the Scottish decided to ape the
English style of coinage. The old ticket
has a £650 price on the reverse (just about discernable in the main image),
illustrating just how good a coin this is.
Choice. £595
Provenance:
ex
Spink
